My husband and I will be in Honolulu only three nights before going on to Kaiai. We will be flying from the east coast, so I think the first night we will just walk around Waikiki a bit, eat dinner, and go to bed. The second day we want to see as much as possible in the Honolulu area. My questions are as follows:

1) Will a car be a help or a hindrance during this one day? We definitely want to see Pearl Harbor and the Bishop Museum. Can we do that in one day? Is there reasonable public transportation over to Pearl Harbor? Are the places to see there too far apart to walk from one to another?

2) If we DO rent a car, is there adequate parking at Pearl Harbor? If we then drive to the Bishop Museum, is there parking there? Or is a car more of a hindrance than a help?

3) The second full day we plan to rent a car and drive around the island, probably including to the Polynesian Cultural Center. Should we keep the car overnight and drive ourselves to the airport? We would have to pay parking at the hotel. Or would it be more economical to turn the car in and take a cab to the airport? Would we save much money by taking a hotel-hopping bus of some kind?

Thanks so much to everyone who has advice for me!

Oops! I spelled Kauai wrong. Can anyone answer my questions?

This might be helpful:
http://www.thebus.org/Pop/pop.asp

I suggest get a car at the airport and pay to park at the hotel. I think the cost of a cab or shuttle will offset the expense of hotel parking. Our group took a bus trip to Pearl Harbor and it would have taken alot less time out of our day if we had driven ourselves. We went early and it looked like there was plenty of parking. You should be able to do Pearl Harbor in a couple of hours. The Bus does travel to all parts of the island, but the schedules were confusing & would waste too much time. I can not give you information on Bishop Museum. We also drove around the island and it is a beautiful drive. Be sure to check in some of the guide books for places of interest to stop & see. We were there in December and really enjoyed the surfers at the North Shore. These are some of the most beautiful beaches and you can actually swim there during the summer. Lots of quaint shops in the smaller towns. Gives a better feeling or real Hawaii that Honolulu. We just got the car for our last 2 days, but should have gotten it the 1st day & would have left town everyday for the real beauty.

We took the trolley. It stops at all the tourist attractions and you can get on and off all day. It costs $20 per person but a half price coupon in This week in Oahu brought the cost down. If you do not time it properly you can wait a long time for the trolley but you can walk between stops in Honolulu. The next day we took the shuttle $7.00 per person to Pearl Harbor. I was just as glad not to be fighting traffic. We also took the tour bus to the Polynesian Cultural Center, only $14 per person for transporation. We had intended to rent a car to travel around but decided to leave the driving to them. We were glad not to be driving when the show ended at 10 PM.

Thank you for the advice and additional suggestions. Paula suggests getting a car for the whole time we'll be there, and Diane suggests not bothering to get a car at all. I'd love some additional opinions on the subject.

Also, what time does it get dark on Oahu? If we leave the Bishop Museum when it closes at 5 p.m., will there be enough hours of daylight left to drive out of Honolulu and do or see anything?

If you decide not to rent a car, I highly recommend the company ENoa (let me know if you can't find the website). They offer a wide variety of tours of Oahu and Pearl Harbor and offer pick ups at I believe 3 different hotels in Oahu (we were at the Ohana Maile Sky Court where they did pick up.) It was $15 per person for pickup/transportation to Pearl Harbor. We toured the USS Arizona only. We actually missed the bus and they went out of their way to accomodate our tardiness by having another bus pick us up. Their guides were terrific on Oahu and Hawaii knowledge in general. If you search "Pearl Harbor Tours" you can find them easily.

We were in Honolulu May 28th - May 31st. We took The Bus to Pearl Harbor it was alright. We left our hotel around 7:30. It was very crowed and the ride was around 45 minutes. If we go again to Honolulu we will rent a car. We could have seen alot more if we didn't spend so much time in The Bus. Oh, by the was the traffic was not bad at all. Maybe it is alot worse during peak periods.

I took the public bus to Pearl Harbor from Waikiki in February 2001. Since I had a limited amount of time I had to board the bus in the dark to make the first tour and the ride was about an hour with a lot of stops. The memorial can get pretty crowded so I'd suggest getting there early before the first tour. They only hand out so many tickets for each tour and by the time the first tour (mine)ended the wait was 2 hours. If you have time, the bus goes through Chinatown and I wish I could have gotten off there for awhile. There is plenty of parking at Pearl from what I saw. All things considered I'd say you have enough reasons to get a car unless you're really cheap like me.

ttt

What "shuttle" are people refering to? Public or private? How early does it go? I found the Enoa web site. Looks convenient. Anyone besides Diane have experience with them? Is it worth seeing the USS Misouri or just Arizona memorial?

My thoughts on car vs tour is that if your real good at reading and understanding the Hawaiian language, by all means rent a car.. But if all of a sudden your at an intersection with someone telling you about the street names that they can't say or spell them out in time, you may find yourself driving around in circles a lot. We did the tour buses for that reason. my sister and family of four adults rented a car and didn't get to see half of what we did because of this. To me Honolulu was like LA. But rent a car to get away from the city and you can stop and go as you please. Wish I were going soon!!!

About "The Bus" - has anyone used it to go to Hanauma Bay? We heard the parking there can get full.We also saw a mention on a tv show about a bus that does circle tour of the island in about 2 1/2 hours-thought this might be a good overview and then we will rent a car another day to go to specific places

To clarify-the circle tour was a public bus-we do not want to go on a "tour" Thanks

rph - we've done both ways to Hanauma Bay, drove and also took The Bus. The parking let does get packed and if I remember the area right, there isn't really anywhere else near to park. The bus was fine but there was also quite a crowd waiting for it when it came around late afternoon. Just before the bus arrived, several "limo"-taxis showed up offering rides. There was a little old Chinese man sitting near the bus sign who seemed to have made it his mission to keep us poor tourists from being taken by what he thought was a rip-off. Every time another taxi showed up and its driver hopped out and opened his doors to wait for a fare, or another few people showed up to wait in the line, the old man would shout out to everyone, don't take the car, wait for The Bus, The Bus is cheap, wait for The Bus.

When we were on Oahu, we did exactly what you're looking to do. We went to Pearl Harbor first, and got there before the first tour. There is a lot of parking on site there. From there, we headed to Bishop Museum. We got directions from the Information Desk, just inside the door at Pearl Harbor. They had printed directions. There was also ample parking at Bishop Museum. You can easily do both in one day.

We enjoyed the drive around the island. Our favorite sites were the beaches we stopped at along the way,particularly the north shore and Waiamanalo [sp?] on the south shore, the Byodo-In Temple, and stopping at Matsumoto's for a shave ice.

Lois has it right about getting both Pearl Harbor and Bishop's done in one day-no problem. I would not miss the Missouri. You can get an all in one ticket for admission for the Arizona, the Missouri and the Bowfin (a very interesting WWII era submarine). I too would get there early, there is plenty of parking and not a lot of people. Take the boat to the Arizona first as there is a long wait later in the day.

On the car vs. bus issue, I think it may depend on what you are familiar with. I'm from central California and I'm just not used to public transportation (it's true, we all take our cars everywhere). For me, it is just too big of a hassle to deal with bus schedules and it's too expensive to take cabs. The freedom of a car cannot be beat. Parking is far from impossible and the flexibility is worth it. You don't want to waste a minute of precious Hawaii vacation time standing in a line or waiting on a bus. If you are used to that, it may not be a problem for you but it drives me nuts. I

I also second the Byodo-In Temple, it is just beautiful.

Another tip if you are a coffee drinker. The Starbucks outside of our hotel had a line about 75 people long. I'm not kidding, it was out of the store and down the block for 3 other storefronts. On the day you head for the around the island trip, don't buy coffee in Waikiki but wait until you get out of town. There are several along that route without any lines at all. On that trip, I would recommend driving over the Pali Highway and then down toward the coast. The lookout is amazing. On the way back to Honolulu, stop at the Done Plantation and have a pineapple sherbert-excellent on a hot day. If you are game, there is a hedge maze. It was fun because I had never been in one before but there is no breeze in there and it gets REALLY hot. Maybe that is why the pineapple sherbert was so great!

For a great view of Waikiki, Pearl, Punch Bowl, Diamond Head and Honolulu, ask your concierge (spelling?) for directions to Round Top Mountain Drive. It is not far but an unforgettable view.

I wish I were going back soon-have fun.

See http://www.thebus.org/

To Pearl Harbor, look into using express bus A, then B for a fast, comfortable, uncrowded ride. Maybe ask here for advice on the transfer point.

For Hanauma, the trick outbound is to get on bus 22 early on one of it's first 3 stops to avoid full bus. Inbound?

For circle island, you may just want to take the most scenic east half (bus 55 omitting 52 which does west half). So when the bus ends at Turtle bay hilton, find out if your bus is heading back as 55 or changes to 52. Take whatever heads back and stop whereever looked best. If this is the Polynesian Cultural Center, don't miss the little beach and cliff walk 5 min walk south.

The circle island trip can be exhausting and bone-jarring. Doing a mini circle is much nicer. Bus 22 AFTER hanauma becomes one of the most scenic bus runs around to the end of the line at sea life park. Stop at the beach there (or Sandy's). Can take 58 back (stop at spiffy Kahala mall) or thru the mts (57?)